The present invention relates to a plug for closing an aperture in a panel and in particular to a plug for closing and sealing an aperture in a body panel of a vehicle.
It is well known to provide a plug for closing an aperture in a panel comprising a substantially flat plate portion and a plurality of integral legs depending from the plate portion which are adapted to snap-engage into the aperture in the panel to secure and clamp the plate portion against the panel.
Hitherto, plugs of this type have been formed from carbon steel and the legs which snap-engage through the aperture in the panel have been formed integrally with the plate portion. The legs must have a substantial amount of resilience and the plug has been rendered resilient during manufacture.
However, in some applications it is necessary to form the plate portion from a relatively heavy gauge steel in order to achieve sufficient strength, for instance if the plug is of the order of eighty millimeters in diameter, and problems then arise in forming the legs if they are integral with the heavy gauge steel plate portion.
In order to overcome these problems, we now provide a plug comprising a plate portion and a plurality of separate legs which are attached to the plate portion and which are adapted to snap-engage through an aperture in a panel to secure the plate portion to the panel. This enables the plate portion and the legs to be formed from different gauge material, for instance the plate portion can be formed from a relatively heavy gauge mild steel and the legs from a relatively thin carbon steel. The legs can also be rendered resilient before they are attached to the plate portion.
We have also found that the known metal type of plug does not always make an effective seal against the panel in which it is mounted. In order to overcome this problem it is known to coat the undersurface of the periphery of the plate portion of the plug with a sealing material such as a heat softenable plastics material. However, this has a number of manufacturing disadvantages and we have found that this problem can be solved more efficiently by attaching a separate sealing ring on the rim of the plate portion of the plug after the legs have been attached to the plate portion so that in use a part of the sealing ring is trapped between the plate portion and the panel when the plug is mounted in an aperture in the panel.